(Closed) yaaaaay! news! (not *the* news, but still..!)

so I this isn’t exactly on topic for the waiting board (or maybe it is, who knows?) but I just really need to share my joy/excitement/trepidation at a major breakthrough that just happened..

boyfriend and I just got accepted to birthright!!! together! (for those that aren’t familiar with the program: it’s a free ten day trip to israel).

this is such a huge deal for us for a number of reasons: not only is it going to be his and my first time travelling there, but it’s also something we’ve talked about doing as part of our plan/timeline in building our future together.

you see, he’s american and jewish while my ancestry is a little bit more on the murky side.. in a nutshell: I am from the soviet union where generations of religious and ethnic persecution have led many people to change their names, hide their origins and forget many traditions. I grew up in an another country (my parents fled the ussr when I was 6) and was raised with zero sense of religion or heritage other than the knowledge that our family had, at some point, been jewish..I’ve often wondered about that side of myself and tried to explore it on my own as best I could..

ever since coming to the states and meeting my boyfriend, however, this “exploration” has suddenly reached a moment where it’s suddenly not about me and my thoughts anymore: it’s about the family that we both want to have. a few months ago, we went to have a chat with the rabbi at our univesity’s hillel to see if he suggests I go through a formal conversion, or a mikveh. He told us that this is something we need to undertake together and that, in the months preceding our wedding (if our desire is to begin a family through marriage), we should come talk to him and maybe sign up for some religious classes together. That conversation happened a few months ago and we haven’t talked about it since..

.. that is until now!

now that it’s confirmed we’re going to Israel in only a couple of months, my sweet SO suggested we go and start talking with the rabbi now, like, next week! I am so excited! This truly feels like the beginning of something wonderful and the fact that we will be going to Israel as it happens just makes it so much more special! :))))

just thought I’d share! the always friendly and supportive bees seem like the best audience for this kind of thing!

Do you need to be raised Jewish (since you alluded to not having a background in it) to go on birthright? How do you have to “prove” your heritage? I would love to go, but the Jewishness got lost several generations back.

@MadameX: thank you! I like “unique family identity”: that’s a much better, to the point version of what I was getting at! 🙂

@love108: I don’t know if it’s a matter of proof, per se.. I also think it all depends on the organizer. The main requirement is being jewish, but that can mean different things for different people (for example, reform jews in the states recognize patrilineal descent, as long as the individual has been raised in judaism or doesn’t practice any other religion, while most other jewish branches consider that you need to be born of a jewish mother to be jewish). It’s all quite complicated and, in the case of people like us (if I may make an assumption based on your question), can be a very sensitive, personal matter. I’d advise you to talk to a group like hillel – you can find them on most university campuses – and see if you feel like you would be a good fit for their program. Either way, you will have to fill out an application detailing your background, your connection with judaism and/or israel, and your motivation for applying for the trip, after which you will have to go through an in person interview going over your answers… Just to say that if there is something in your application that makes you ineligible, both you and the organizer will figure that out soon enough. Good luck! Feel free to PM me if you have any more questions!